Collecting XSJohn's Wisdom

Well it's pretty clear to me that we all are saddened by John's passing, and there is virtually a universal feeling, it seems, that his loss is also a great loss to the XS650 community. I can think of no better way to honor John's legacy than by insuring that his wisdom is preserved. But it's gonna require input from those of us he helped. Thus, I propose that, not only do we search the archives here and those at 650 Rider (maybe the XS650 Garage as well?) and begin assembling an organized compendium of his advice, but that we also share our PMs from him as well.

I'm more than willing to help out in this regard, in terms of collecting his public comments, editing them and correcting grammar, etc. (I'm a published writer and editor with degrees in Linguistics, so I've got some experience in this regard) but sadly all the PMs I've had from him were at 650 Rider, and I suspect that those are no longer available.

I also have a pristine, uninstalled set of his needles that, perhaps someday we might want to consider having duplicated so that owners of bikes with BS34s can still have access to them. It probably would be a fairly easy chore for a CNC shop to knock them out in quantity. I could check around here in Houston, or if there's somebody here at the forum who has access to a CNC lathe, then we might could keep the reproductions in house.

It could very well be that, in time, XSJohn's tips will rival the Minton Mods in their popularity and usefulness.

So what do y'all think?

PM's are 'private' messages. I say we leave them that way. Just one guys opinion.

I understand. Perhaps I should have been more clear. When I mentioned sharing the PMs, I meant that we could share comments pertaining to improving our XS650s. Any other content should remain private.

http://www.650rider.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=60331

This has been bookmarked for more than a year on my computer. John's postings on his custom needles.

I have been following xsjohns developments and communicating with him from when he was developing his needles and i have been going over some of his old threads collecting some info i did not already have stored. It is not just the developments that xsjohn had done but the information that was in his head that went with them and as any one with his needles will tell you the time he spent helping get it right. Every ones variation on exhaust type, jetting, head, pods/air-box, and all these variations related to shim thickness, needle height and so on.The quess work and time that would be involved to get the knowledge will take literary years.

Now i am not saying that it shouldn't be done and i was thinking along the same lines and posted a couple of old threads when i saw Travis had made a sticky, what i am saying is xsjohn was an inventor and as he developed things ideas changed so all of his developments may not have been, or more correctly they evolved and not all the information will be posted so a caution as to what we think we know and what xsjohn did know. As he developed some things, he deleted some information he posted because he wanted to keep it a secret so he could make a small return on his mods.

Often one of xsjohns mods related to another one of his mods. like custom needles- custom air jet- air-box mod

i think this is a wonderful idea. it is frustrating to know that all of our PM's with advice from xsjohn on 650rider are lost.

i will scour the forums and try to help out.

They're not lost, it'll just take some work. I've been very busy lately so give me a few days and I can get you guys access to them.

Great news, Travis!

So I don't want to be that guy...but, I was really looking forward to getting a set of Johns Needles. So, if anyone has a set their not using for BS34, I'd be very interested in getting my hands on them. Or can someone offer a suggestion for alternative needles, that to my understand, are as simple as his were?

I'm really not trying to disrespect John, I was in the middle of PM'ing him for the information on the needles, when I saw the news. The information on this board, and all the positive words about how well his needles worked, and how easy they were to install, makes me really want a set.

I have a set of uninstalled XSJohn needles, but I don't want to sell them. I suspect there will be other BS34 owners who will be in need of sets, and I would like to keep mine as templates, if you will, in the event that we may be able to have reproductions of his needles made. I'm thinking that having them reproduced using a CNC lathe will not be difficult.

Thanks CoolTouch.
I keep tabs on what happens.

Again, if anyone knows of a comparable set please let me know.

Thanks

It is very likely that a demand for XSJohn's needles for BS34 carbs will continue. Most likely, it will be up to one or more of us to see to it that this demand can continue to be filled. Producing duplicates of John's needles with a CNC lathe should not be a difficult task. So, today I took a step in that direction and opened up my package of needles I received from John a while back. They've never been installed.

Armed with a set of dial calipers that read to 0.001" and a rule with a 1/100" scale, I made some detailed measurements, then made a drawing of them, showing all pertinent measurements.

Just by eyeballing the needles, I could tell that the taper is not linear, so I measured the taper in 1/10" increments and listed these measurements in the drawing. I then decided to find out how far each needle differed from an exact, theoretically linear taper, and plotted these measurement differences on a graph for each needle, comparing them with a linear taper.

On the graph, the Y-axis represents the taper values and the X-axis represents the distance along the needle where the measurement was taken. I won't get into discussing exactly how I arrived at the Y-axis numbers unless you specifically want to know. It's easy enough to understand, it'll just take a lot of typing to do the explanation.

Here are pics of the drawing and the graph:





Each needle is 2.030" long. The untapered portion of the shaft is 0.120" in diameter and extends for 0.75" before the taper begins. The tapered portion of the shaft is 1.280" long. There are five grooves, and they begin 0.050" from the end of the shaft. Each groove is 0.020" wide and they are spaced 0.020" apart. The grooves are approximately 0.030" deep. The narrow tip of the blue (left) needle is 0.034" in diameter, and the narrow tip of the red (right) one is 0.032" in diameter. I took diameter measurements along the tapered portion of the shaft in 1/10" increments. The actual measurements are shown in the drawing.

The graph shows how far the needles deviate from linear. There is an obvious "fat" area in the middle of each needle. The red (right) one is very slightly fatter than the blue (left). Is this significant? I don't know, but John emphasized repeatedly that the right needle was optimized so that cylinder would run cooler.

What I would like to do would be able to gather these same numbers from other folks who have his needles. Just the measurements to the closest thousandth of an inch taken with an accurate set of dial calipers or micrometer in 1/10" increments on the tapers is all I would need. Uninstalled needles would be best. Low mileage ones would be next best. By having a larger sample than one set of needles (hopefully quite a bit larger), we can determine more accurately what the optimum values should be. Having this will also help eliminate error due to tolerance slop. I don't know what sort of tolerances John settled for, but they had to have been pretty tight.

I don't happen to know if there is a longevity problem with the aluminum Mikuni needles. I do know there is an issue with the aluminum needles found on some Bing carburetors installed on later model BMW airheads, however. BMW airheads tend to be very high mileage motorcycles -- like 100k+ miles is not uncommon -- so I suppose it stands to reason that worn out aluminum needles would show up on BMW Bings sooner than they would on XS Mikunis. The preferred Bing needles are made from steel, and they will last forever. So, I was thinking that perhaps we might want to consider steel needles as a possible option for our BS34s.

Okay, so anyway, now you know everything I've been able to determine about XSJohn's needles -- or at least, my set of them. I have contacted a local CNC machine shop, describing the needles to them, and hope to have a quote soon. Probably within the next day or so. I'll post back when I have that information.

Awesome work CoolTouch!

Well done cooltouch, Could try to get hold of Johns son or wife and they may be able to help out with some needles that may still be there. If you mention what we are trying to do in setting up an "xsjohn mod" thread for future references and a legacy to John it may be received in the spirit of good intentions

drew them up, the 3d, 2d solidworks files, as well as .dwg and .pdf are attached. (remove .pdf extension, then extract with 7zip).

hopefully this'll help with quotations. (i used a spline to smooth the taper, so if they use the files in a cam program they'll get a more precise curve).

anyways, figured i could try do my part.

Well done! I have BS38s, but this discussion and the ensuing effort is a great - and frankly quite moving - tribute to John!

TC

Kudo's to all involved.
Out for discussion; someone should manufacture and sell the needles. a part of each sale should accrue to XSJohn's estate, or with heirs approval go towards funding this site. On THAT riff how (who) is funding the site now?

Correction: Rick (nj1639) mentioned to me in a PM that I had my colors switched. I checked with the instructions that came with the needles, and sure enough, he was right. I changed the text to indicate this -- blue = left and red = right -- but can't do anything about the drawings until I redo them.

Skull and Gary, I agree with where you're coming from. I'll see about contacting members of John's family. I'm not much on the accounting end of things, being more of an "idea guy" but I'm sure that we can develop something where a portion of the proceeds could be sent to John's estate, or donated to the board. We won't be talking about a lot, but I'm sure it will be appreciated.

Rick was wondering if John had patented his needle design. I looked at my instruction sheet and there is no mention of patent, copyright, or trademark. So I think we're most likely okay from a legal standpoint if we duplicate his design. But I think common courtesy dictates that we inform his family of our intentions.

TKat, one of the things I distinctly remember John mentioning was that he had planned to take a look at the BS38 needles to see if they might be improved. This was a couple years ago. I wonder if anything came of that. I'm pretty sure that there were variances in the needles for the BS38s though. From what I've been told more than once, the '77 BS38s were the best because by 1978 EPA regs had led to the carbs being set up to run leaner than previous years, and the main differences were in the needles. Dunno about years prior to '77.

Visegrippe, I'll go hunt up a copy of 7zip, and dl/unzip the files. Hopefully I can find a program around here that will be able to read them. I agree, a CAD/CAM program would have to employ a spline routine to smooth the curve across the data points.

On this same note, I'll mention again that I believe it would be best if we could have more than one set of data before we finalize a set of drawings. I'll draw up a simplified drawing of the needle, showing the points where I think it would be best to take the measurements from.

for the 2d drawings, try draftsight, free, and works pretty well. (it's from the makers of solidworks, and is free, really).

Well done guys. I know that he did indeed sell needles for the BS38's. I don't think there was much benefit to be had with the 38's, other than getting the cylinders to run the same temperature, but I don't really know.